Reading Room

It's fiction, but it's real!

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Radical shift

Compiled by DAPHNE LEE

The Sirens of Baghdad
Author: Yasmina Khadra
Publisher: William Heinemann, 320 pages

A YOUNG Iraqi man’s life changes when his country is invaded by the United States. 

Forced to leave the University of Baghdad, he returns to his village of birth where three events help to turn this normally peace-loving individual into a man filled with hatred and the desire for revenge.

He joins a radical group and is eventually chosen to carry out a suicide mission in London, but will his conscience allow him to carry out his mission?

Fair Play
Author: Tove Jansson
Publisher: Sort of Books, 152 pages

THE profound, lasting love between two women, an artist and a writer, is the subject of this novel by the creator of the Moomin series. 

First published in Swedish in 1989, this is its first English translation, released by the same publisher that recently issued new editions of Jansson’s A Winter Book and The Summer Book. 

Like those books, this one draws on the writer’s own life and experiences, reflecting her own philosophy, passions and beliefs.

Dancing with the Two-Headed Tigress
Author: Tina Biswas
Publisher: Black Swan, 400 pages

MOUSUMI, fat and fresh from India, feels like a fish out of water in London where she’s been sent to live with her sophisticated relatives. 

Uncle Prakash is kind and easy-going, but Mousumi is more than a little intimidated by her no-nonsense aunt Tuhina and glamorous cousin, Darshini (the title’s two-headed tigress). 

The two girls can’t decide whether they love or hate one another, but just as Darshini seems to be getting the better of her gauche cousin, Mousumi suddenly shows that she has some tiger in her too!

Peony in Love
Author: Lisa See
Publisher: Random House, 304 pages

THIS novel, set in 17th-century China, has a ghost for a protagonist: Peony is 16 when she dies, on the eve of her wedding. Unlike most girls of her time, Peony was educated and, when while she was alive, obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, an actual 16th-century Chinese opera. 

The lovesick heroine in the opera starves herself to death, and Peony chooses much the same fate when she falls in love with a man who is not her betrothed. But death offers release from the restrictions of tradition and convention, and, as a spirit, Peony “lives” like she never has before.

Wives of the East Wind
Author: Liu Hong
Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, 256 pages

TWO couples meet during the Cultural Revolution and form a lasting bond of friendship that sees them through the turbulent years ahead. 

As China undergoes violent upheavals, the four friends are forced to re-examine beliefs and values, which are often shaken to their very core.

In the midst of unimaginable suffering and violence, betrayal and disillusionment, the women show exceptional courage and strength, and teach one another many invaluable lessons about the life-sustaining gift of hope and love.

Body Surfing
Author: Anita Shreve
Publisher: Little Brown and Company, 304 pages

DIVORCED from her first husband, Sydney falls in love again only to find herself suddenly widowed. She decides to opt for a peaceful summer, and accepts a job as tutor to 18-year-old Julie Edwards, at the latter’s seaside home. This, however, proves to be no quiet retreat. 

For a start, Sydney is Jewish while Julie’s mother is scathingly anti-Semitic. Julie then runs off with her lesbian lover, while Sydney embarks on a passionate relationship with Julie’s brother. 

Shreve is the author of the critically-acclaimed The Pilot’s Wife and the Weight of Water. This is her 12th novel.